What? He has his hands full already with just one state! That was my first thought. Then I looked closer at the article, and realized it should've said nine counties, not nine states. A closer look made me notice Huckabee (a big deal there) on the front page too. This little paper almost always uses phrases like "had the pleasure of," and "a good time was enjoyed by all." It's frequently full of unintentional humor! The paper usually doesn't have errors like this issue, which was also full of typographical errors. I hope the economy hasn't caused job cuts there. If I'm not mistaken, the newspaper only has one full time employee and maybe two part timers.
This is my weekly home town newspaper--The Hardin County Independent, or "the paper" as most of us call it. It also has the nickname "Hardin County Gossip," due to the detailed court news. Well, it's not actually a home town newspaper, because it is a county wide newspaper serving the entire county (population 4,800), made up of three tiny rural towns.
It comes out every Thursday. If I am lucky, I receive mine by the following Monday. It must have been a slow mail day, since I got this issue on Friday. I subscribe to the paper, so I can keep up with the news without having to make the 278 mile trip home. I think I will make a weekly blog post about something funny, odd, or outrageous from the little eight page newspaper.
Most of my relatives live in that county shown in red on the above map. I lived there during most of my childhood. I can remember always looking forward to Thursday afternoons, so I could read the newspaper. The only daily newspaper available was the Paducah (Kentucky) Sun, or the Evansville (Indiana) Courier & Press. Neither of these newspapers had much news from rural southern Illinois, and I couldn't afford to buy one each day anyway. USA Today didn't even exist back then.
Back in the day we had to rely on one of the three television stations (ABC, NBC, and CBS) or radio stations in nearby towns for our news. We didn't even have FM radio until I was a teenager! And with the beautiful hills and hollows of southern Illinois, we were lucky to receive one or two radio stations. Of course, there was no internet yet either!
Now I live in the pistol shaped county shown in yellow. I'm glad I live in a community now that is large enough to support a daily newspaper. Like many before me, I left beautiful southern Illinois for college and employment. I can't imagine ever moving back "home." I am just too used to certain things, like a daily newspaper, 24 hour shopping, airports, etc!
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My daughter is a journalist for a small paper in New Hampshire and she said she was surprised by how many of their writers weren't journalist majors. She also said they often will sit at their desks and have contests over how many times they could use a particular word that day in their stories without the editor's catching it. She's won that bet a few times...guess that expensive education at Mizzou for the journalism and poli-sci major was worth it, eh? (eyes rolling)
I also noticed the other day that she had a story in her paper about an apartment building that has a major problem with bed bugs. Knowing how she feels about bugs (I can imagine the look on her face as she sat through THAT interview!), I have the feeling her bosses may know about her little games and had a little payback of their own. :-D
Aren't small town newspapers fun to read! I never imagined all that stuff goes on at those papers!
I think this paper must take bets on how many times they can print "an a good time was had by all."
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